Medical balloons are used for a variety of medical procedures including angioplasty, scoring, vessel dilatation, valvuloplasty, occlusion and for many other applications. In many such applications, it is desirable to provide additional components to tailor the balloon to improve its function in each of the various specific uses. One common procedure involving the use of a balloon catheter relates to angioplasty dilation of coronary or other arteries suffering from stenosis (that is, a narrowing of the arterial lumen which restricts blood flow). In angioplasty techniques the proper dilation of stenosed regions that are hardened and/or have become calcified can be difficult with a standard medical balloon. Therefore it is known to fix cutting elements, such as blades, onto the surface of the balloon in order to cut away at plaque and other build-up on the interior walls of a lumen. The blades may be fixed to the balloon with a layer of adhesive in a process can be fiddly and time consuming.
Often the manufacture of medical balloons is a complex and time consuming task, particularly having regard to the importance for reliability of the device.
Medical balloons are disclosed in a number of earlier publications including, for example, in US 2010/0036314, U.S. Pat. No. 6,143,416, U.S. Pat. No. 6,786,889, US 2009/0299450, U.S. Pat. No. 5,620,649, U.S. Pat. No. 7,828,766 and US 2010/0262218.